FIGHT OR FLIGHT: THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM
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289
FIGHT OR FLIGHT: THE IMPORTANCE
OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE
SYSTEM
Barbara McCulloch, * Jeremy Scuse ** and Cathy Stinear ***
Our relations to one another grew more and more hostile and at last reached a stage
where it was not disagreement that caused hostility but hostility that caused
disagreement. Whatever she might say, I disagreed with beforehand, and it was just
the same with her.....We no longer tried to bring any dispute to a conclusion. We
invariably kept to our own opinions even about the most trivial questions.....As I
now recall them the views I maintained were not at all so dear to me that I could not
have given them up; but she was of the opposite opinion and to yield meant yielding
to her, and that I could not do. (Leo Tolstoy)
Why do we fight? What motivates us to engage in conflict or even combat with
another?
If I think of the times that I
have been in conflict with
another person, it can be hard to
articulate what we were in
conflict about without sounding
and feeling really stupid. Why
did I argue with my partner
about what to save and what to
delete on the My Sky recorder
last week? It wasn't even full and there's not that much that we want to record? So,
why did we engage in the conflict?
* AAMINZ. Director of Around the Table Solutionz.
** Accredited Mediator with CEDR.
*** Clinical Neuroscientist, School of Medicine, University of Auckland.290 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
Neuroscience tells us that it is because each of us, my partner and I, felt
threatened in some way. Here we were, two middle class, middle aged, educated
professionals arguing about something trivial. Where was the threat?
One way of understanding this is to consider meeting your brain!
Your brain is the most precious organ in your body. It cannot be replaced, there
are no transplants, and if part of it becomes damaged or dies, it cannot repair itself
or grow back. Everything you know, everything you remember, everything you
know how to do, and everything that makes you, you is stored in your brain. So,
now we are going to learn some basic things about how your brain responds to
danger, where emotions and feelings come from, and how your brain can and will
change, depending on how you use it.
I THE FIGHT OR FLIGHT RESPONSE
The outer surface of the brain is called the cerebral cortex. It is grey and
wrinkly, and contains millions of neurons. The cortex is responsible for the things
you're conscious of – what you see, hear, think, say, do and remember. Each region
of the cortex communicates with the others, and also with other areas located deep
within the brain. These deep areas are responsible for the things you do not
consciously control – your temperature, heart rate, hormones, sleep and digestion.
So how do the conscious and unconscious processes in your brain interact?
Your conscious perceptions affect the unconscious control of your body. When
you perceive that you're safe, the deep areas of your brain respond by helping your
muscles relax, your heart rate is slow and steady, your digestion is good and you
sleep well. When you perceive a threat, whether it's stepping on broken glass or
seeing someone with whom you're in conflict, the fight or flight response is
triggered in the deep areas of the brain. This unconscious response prepares your
body for survival, by focusing your attention, increasing your heart rate, dilating
your pupils, and diverting blood flow away from digestion and towards your
muscles.
An important
deep area of the brain
is called the
amygdala, which
plays a critical role in
regulating fear.
Sensory information
about your body and
your environment is
sent to the amygdalaTHE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 291
and the cortex at the same time. This means that the amygdala can respond to a
threat and initiate a fight or flight response even before you consciously experience
fear. The amygdala also helps you to link events with rewards, promoting positive
emotions.
The amygdala has numerous connections to the cortex, particularly the
forebrain. Communication between the forebrain and the amygdala occurs in both
directions. During an emotional response, the amygdala influences the cortex and
what you pay attention to, which memories you retrieve, and your decision-making
strategy. Conversely, remembering previous traumas, or imagining future ones, can
trigger the amygdala to initiate a fight or flight response. It's the partnership
between the amygdala and the frontal areas of cortex that give us our emotions and
feelings.
Dr Laura Crawshaw uses the term "TAD Dynamic" to explain the impact of
threat in our relationships; her theory has its roots in neurological, anthropological,
psychological and sociological thinking.
Laura asks us to consider a mouse: mice have fairly small lives in the scheme of
things. They spend their time collecting food and exploring their environment (or
at least the edges of their environment) and breeding baby mice and smelling like
mice. Some would say that they do no harm.
Now consider a cat and more importantly consider a cat in relation to a mouse.
Cats pose a threat to mice; when a mouse sees a cat it feels anxiety and its only
defence to that feeling of anxiety is flight. If mice were different (and if they had
access to Tasers or flame throwers) they might have an alternative defence: to fight
the cat. Possibly it is good that this defence does not exist for mice or they would
simply join us in the fight or flight dichotomy.
So we have the brilliantly simple and effective TAD response:
A sense of Threat creates a reaction of Anxiety and our response to anxiety is to
use our Fight or flight Defence.
Charles Darwin (1859) contributed to this theory of conflict with his research on
the survival of the fittest. The theory was further advanced by Walter Cannon who
coined the phrase "fight or flight" in 1928. Sigmund Freud (1894 and 1936) made
further contributions when he established that the fight or flight response was
activated not just by physical threats but also by the psychological perception of
threat.292 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
II THE ROLE OF PERCEPTION
A perception of threat is primarily internal and individual rather than external
and able to be assessed as factually existing. But perception is important: think
about what makes you feel anxious or afraid and then analyse the level of threat
contained: how many of us are afraid of spiders? Of singing out loud in public? Of
walking across a transparent platform in a floor high up in a building? Typically we
drown spiders in the shower (fight) and avoid karaoke bars and glass floors high up
in buildings (flight).
Freud's contribution to this theory of conflict was expanded when he stated that
humans are mostly anxious about loss; annihilation was the loss of life and
abandonment was the loss of love. Thus, anxiety could be provoked and the
perception of threat could be created if a person felt such a possibility of loss and
that person would react with one of the fight or flight defences.
Returning to my argument with my partner about the My Sky box: what was our
perception of loss and how did that provoke anxiety and why did we engage in our
argument? I ask because many of our day to day interactions are fuelled by this
same kind of provocation and we tend to engage with those who are closest to us:
our family members and co-workers and flatmates and partners and friends. If we
can reflect on and understand what fuels our own conflicts, even our own
squabbles, we may in turn develop a better understanding not just of another's
conflicts but of how best to assist them when they approach us for help.
It has been both my experience and observation that we learn our conflict
responses in childhood and that our fight or flight preferences can be established
before we can even articulate the "why" of our choices. What did you fight about
with your siblings? How were those disputes resolved? Did you develop a well-
practised response whenever you felt crossed? Was your preference for fight or
flight?
III EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS
Aren't these the same thing? We tend to use the words 'emotion' and 'feeling'
interchangeably, but in neuroscience they're thought to be two different things.
Emotions are the physiological responses that occur more or less unconsciously
when the brain detects threats or opportunities. The pounding heart and tense
muscles when you're in danger, the tears and sobs when you're experiencing loss,
and the gasps and giggles when you have a wonderful surprise, are emotional
responses that you don't have much control over. Emotions serve as important
cues, which shape our behaviour to our advantage. The initial processing of
emotions occurs unconsciously in the deep areas of the brain, including theTHE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 293
amygdala. This unconscious processing leads to feelings, which are the conscious
perceptions of your emotional responses.
What's the advantage of becoming consciously aware of physiological
emotional responses? How are feelings adaptive? One answer might be that if we
had emotional responses, but did not consciously experience feelings, we'd be less
able to anticipate and plan behaviour. Feelings help us to learn about the people,
things and situations that cause our emotional responses, and understand their
significance so we can plan appropriately our future actions when we encounter
these people, things and situations again. In summary, our unconscious emotional
responses are automatic signals of threat and opportunity. In contrast, conscious
feelings engage our thinking skills and let us modify and adapt our behaviour to
avoid or cope with threat and take advantage of opportunities. How does this
adaptation of behaviour happen, and can we control it?
Jeremy Scuse, Catalyst Mediation UK says to make use of our combined
emotions, feelings and thoughts we need to be motivated. "Motivations are the end
result of 'e-motions'. They act to make us do things – so our muscles tense or relax,
our blood vessels dilate or contract. When we feel emotionally, we also feel
physically. Our emotions can thus make us feel uncomfortable or comfortable,
sending us signals to do something urgently or to stay in our comfortable state.
We make many decisions, and sometimes we are more or less logical about
them. And it is arguable that all decisions are, ultimately emotional. When we say
that we use logic to make decisions, we are seeking to exclude emotions, using
only rational methods, and perhaps even mathematical tools. The foundation of
such decisions is the principle of utility, whereby the value of each option is
assessed by assigning criteria (often weighted). However, there is a whole range of
decision-making that uses emotion, depending on the degree of logic that is
included in the process.
A totally emotional decision is typically very fast. This is because it takes time
(at least 0.1 seconds) for the rational cortex to get going. This is the reactive (and
largely subconscious) decision-making that you encounter in heated arguments or
when faced with immediate danger.
Common emotional decisions may use some logic, but the main driving force is
emotion, which either overrides logic or uses pseudo-logic to support emotional
choices (this is extremely common). Another common use of emotion in decision
is to start with logic and then use emotion in the final choice.294 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
IV BRAIN RESEARCH
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio studied people with brain injuries that had
damaged the part of the brain where emotions are generated. In all other respects
they seemed normal - they just lost the ability to feel emotions. He found their
ability to make decisions was seriously impaired. They could logically describe
what they should be doing, but in practice they found it very difficult to make
decisions about where to live, what to eat, etc.
In particular, many decisions have pros and cons on both sides. Shall I have the
fish or the beef? With no rational way to decide, they were unable to make the
decision.
So rationality and emotions are involved in all decisions, to one degree or
another.
V YOUR CHANGING BRAIN
If you spent time on a farm as a child, you quickly learned to treat electric
fences with a great deal of respect. The memory of receiving a painful shock, and
the fear of receiving another, quickly modified your thinking and behaviour so that
you made safer decisions around electric fences. This type of learning depends on
the adaptability of the connections between the amygdala and the cortex, and is
essential for your survival. It is also a quite simple type of learning. The types of
situations for which people seek mediation are far more complex than electric
fences, and sometimes more painful, but the basic principles of learning in the
brain are the same.
Your brain learns and remembers by changing the number and strength of
connections between neurons. This process is ongoing throughout your life, and is
called neural plasticity. A famous example comes from a study by Woollett and
Maguire (2011), who scanned the brains of taxi drivers before and after they
trained to sit "The Knowledge". This exam tests drivers' knowledge of central
London, in a 6 mile radius around Charing Cross Station. The training requires
learning around 25,000 streets and locations, and takes 3–4 years! Woollett and
Maguire showed that the hippocampus, which is an area of cortex responsible for
spatial memories, grew significantly larger during training. But only in the drivers
who passed the exam. This study, and others like it, clearly shows that the structure
of the brain can change, with repeatedly used areas getting physically larger.
On numerous occasions I have been briefed by an HR professional or a manager
and asked to mediate between two people engaged in a workplace conflict and the
briefing includes the assessment that "they'll never get on; they have a personality
conflict". So, we might also ask if we also have "a conflict personality".THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 295
In order to consider this question we first need to define the terms "personality"
and "conflict".
Roget's Thesaurus talks about personal make up, character, traits, attributes, self
being the id-ego, individuality, idiosyncratic, personal, typical, the self being the
psyche, the unconscious qualities, instincts, passions, disposition, temperament.
The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought talks about personality types being
"idealised descriptions derived either by statistical procedures or by theoretical
postulation or by some more or less skilful combination of the two ... based upon
differences in physiological and hormonal functioning that reflects itself in
temperament."
Jung used the terms Introversion and Extroversion and talks of differences of
orientation towards the world; he divides personalities into thought -orientated,
feeling -orientated and instinct -orientated. (If you think about it, it is possible to
join the dots between the emotional and instinct oriented personalities and the TAD
dynamic).
Conflict is an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who
perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from others in
achieving their goals
(William Wilmot and Joyce Hocker Interpersonal Conflict (2001) 41)
We say that conflict is natural, inevitable, necessary and normal and that the problem
is not the existence of conflict but how we handle it.
(Bernard Mayer The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution (2000) 3)
No man can think clearly when his fists are clenched.
(George Jean Nathan (1882-1958) was the leading American drama critic of his
time)
A clear difficulty with this analysis is that we tend to consider that personality
traits are fixed and so not subject to change. Paulo Freire suggests that this can lead
us into fatalism and the belief that nothing can or should change. He calls this a
lack of "temporality"; an inability to differentiate between past, present and future.
Lack of temporality is indicated by the use of language: "it's always….you
never…." The fatalistic approach undermines the power we have as humans to
choose and to learn and to behave differently on another occasion.
The brain can change very rapidly, in response to short term increases or
decreases in use. For example, Pascual-Leone and colleagues (1995) studied the
activity of the brain area controlling the index finger in people who proof-read296 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
Braille for a living. They found that the activity was higher at the end of the work
day than at the beginning, and this was specific to the index finger, as no changes
in activity were found for the area of brain controlling the little finger on the same
hand. In a separate study, they also showed that the activity of the area controlling
the index finger was higher in regular Braille readers than infrequent Braille
readers, or in people who do not read Braille. This tells us that there are short-term
effects of practice on brain activity, and these can accumulate into long term effects
with ongoing practice.
It may be useful then for us as conflict resolvers to think about behaviours
rather than personality because behaviours are learned and therefore they are
subject to change and influence. Instead of describing people as being engaged in a
"personality conflict" or analysing their "conflict personality" we might think about
it as a clash between one person's behaviour and another person's interpretation of
that behaviour. For example, if someone at work is regularly late: late for work,
late for meetings, we might interpret that behaviour of lateness as rudeness or
disrespectful or cavalier or unreliable. The interpretation is subjective and in
narrative terms it privileges one kind of behaviour over another without sufficient
evidence of superiority. While it may be possible to persuade someone to change
their behaviour and become more punctual, it is much less possible to persuade the
unpunctual person to accept the interpretation of their lack of punctuality as "rude,
disrespectful, cavalier or unreliable".
Conflict occurs because person A behaves in a way that is unacceptable to
person B because of their interpretation about what that behaviour means and often
voicing their interpretation as factual.
Jeremy Scuse from Catalyst mediation, UK says
If another's behaviour is not what we expect, our trust
bleeds away and their motivations are increasingly seen as
deliberate, damaging, and possibly even evil. To move from
this negative interpretation to something more positive
requires us to trust each other, and trust is like a stalagmite
– it builds up slowly each time we interact with someone
and they respond positively, so we come to expect or "trust"
in their response.
But trust is brittle – one or two adverse interactions and the
stalagmite snaps and has to be rebuilt, drop by interaction
by drop.THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 297
In terms of us as conflict resolvers assisting our parties to build trust, one of our
roles might be to open up the possibility of another way of interpreting behaviour.
We do this by asking questions:
"How else might we interpret lack of punctuality? Can we just as accurately say,
flexible, engaged in what they are doing, passionately involved, concentrating
hard?"
"Are you aware that when you are late to work or to a meeting that others feel
aggrieved?"
"Are there ways that we could arrange hours of work or meeting times that
would mean that you could comply with others' expectations of starting and
finishing times?"
"Are there reasons why you seem to struggle with complying with time
constraints?"
"What does time mean to each of us and how can we do things so that
everyone's needs are met?"
If we practise this technique of opening, then it is less likely that conflict will
occur as a result of our initially different interpretations of certain behaviours like
punctuality. We do, of course, need to be aware of our own interpretations and not
allow these to show or we risk becoming partial and failing in our role as conflict
resolvers.
An often quoted statement in addiction counselling is "If you do what you've
always done, you'll get what you've always got". In other words, try something
different and see what happens. When we coach someone to consider a behaviour
change, it does not have to be permanent; it works better initially if we consider
that we are "just trying" something. (Actually the reason that this works better is
that we are often anxious about failing and so changing behaviour, trying
something new can in itself be perceived as a threat. Not being willing to try
something new is an indicator of the TAD dynamic in practice - not trying is flight
behaviour).
If we are willing to practise the new behaviour until it becomes familiar and
then practise enough to form a new habit, we also have used our brain's plasticity.
My suggestion is that in the first instance we reflect on an experience we have
had ourselves of learning something new. How did we achieve the new activity?
As an example, in 2011 I made a decision to learn how to swim with my face in
the water. As a child I did not ever have swimming lessons other than those we all
received in the almost freezing water of a primary school pool in the late 1960s.298 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
My family had emigrated from Scotland to New Zealand and neither of my parents
could swim. Going to the beach, boating, water activities ... none of these were part
of my experience growing up. My mother gets sea sick on the Devonport ferry; she
considers that voluntarily getting into undomesticated water is a dangerous activity.
Somehow I learned to swim sufficiently well to not be considered a freak but I
never learned to swim with my face in the water and I always experienced a sense
of terrible panic when I tried to do so. (This was possibly a result of nearly
drowning at Karekare beach one year; further proof of my early learning that water
was a dangerous environment).
In order to learn to swim with my face in the water I had to have these things:
desire to drive me forward and discomfort with the old way to prevent me from
returning to that. My desire was about wanting to be fit and flexible and mobile
after an accident that broke my ankle very badly and so having fewer options for
fitness activities. Going swimming in a pool and discovering that I enjoyed being
in the water, wanting to be "normal" in a family of in-laws who (almost literally)
grew up sailing and my discomfort was about having neck and back problems
which swimming with my face out of the water exacerbated.
Learning to swim with my face in the water was a long slow process of practice
and being kind enough to reassure myself that I was making progress. Basically I
can now do it; I swim 40 lengths 3 or 4 times a week and feel very proud of myself.
However I still have barriers and boundaries: I can swim properly in a pool with
goggles on but not in the sea without goggles. I tried snorkelling this summer and
felt all of the old panic returning. I count my breath when I swim face in the water
(because this helps me to manage my ongoing feeling that panic is still there on the
edge of my consciousness). I have a planned escape route so that if the panic
returns, I can turn over onto my back and float myself out of trouble. I gave myself
permission to try something different and to succeed in my own way and my own
time and to not have to be perfect at the new skill. I also gave myself permission to
acknowledge that I had a "problem" and that I could try changing. And I gave
myself permission to risk failure. In other words I exhibited kindness towards
myself in order to learn a new behaviour in a conscious manner.
In narrative terms, my dominant story was "I can't change". In neurological
terms the response driven by my amygdala was "water is dangerous!" So, I had to
create a new chapter in the story of my life and I had to create a new message for
my brain ("water can be fun") so that the process of learning a new skill could
happen. My personality traits don't really include bravery especially about physical
things and I have a real fear of seeming to be stupid or clumsy. Creating a new
story meant dealing with those messages.THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 299
So, do we regularly engage in "personality conflicts" which are unresolvable or
do we have "conflict personalities" which need accurate analysis before we can
engage with each other? One conclusion is to consider that we probably do have a
conflict personality AND that means that we have a tendency to being seduced into
behaving in particular ways AND that the behaviours are learned and become
normalised through repeated practice AND that these practised behaviours are
subject to influence and change even if initially they feel awkward and we have to
practise them consciously. We can teach ourselves new habits by using the power
of our conscious brain.
One way of considering the realm of conflict personalities is this: we can fall
into one of three different conflict personality types: the pacifist, the interventionist
and the hero. Pacifists are good at keeping things in perspective. Interventionists
are good at being helpful and competent. Heroes can stand up for others even when
there is little or no benefit to them personally. However, we all have bad days and
on a bad day, pacifists avoid dealing with people and issues and deny that problems
exist. Interventionists become control freaks and heroes suffer from a permanent
state of road rage; they are angry at everyone. It is of course just as useful to
consider that these descriptions are of common behaviours and default positions. A
default position is a position you take on something before you think too much
about it.
Bad days (or as they sing in the theme song to "Friends" bad weeks and months
and even bad years), can be caused by too much stress, too much bad luck, too
little resilience, too much anxiety and too little assistance to reflect and decide to
do something differently. People who have too many bad days don't necessarily
become bad people; they can still be well intentioned but their behaviour drives
people away and creates perceptions that can be damaging. Assisting people to
manage their bad days and change the behaviours that create the damaging
perceptions is one of the ways that we can contribute to the process of conflict
resolution. The skills of conflict resolution: empathy, acceptance, reflective
listening, summarising and questioning are all useful contributions which can be
shared with others. It is of particular interest to me that learning such "soft skills"
can be achieved very early in life.
Narrative philosophy calls having too many bad days, having a dominant story.
It suggests that our stories are created to make meaning and understanding of what
has happened. As conflict resolvers we understand that new stories or new chapters
in a story are always possible. If Alex Fergusson's team Manchester United
accepted his story, they never lost a game; they never failed. Sometimes they just
did not have enough time before the final whistle to score the winning goal.300 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
In conflict resolution terminology, working with behaviour is more productive
than working with personality. Because behaviour is much more subject to change,
and because as conflict resolvers we are engaging ourselves and encouraging
others to engage in the practice of hopefulness focussing on behaviour provides
more opportunities for success.
When someone approaches us about a conflict they are involved in, it is likely
that they have either recently experienced a TAD response or that they are still
experiencing it and in particular that they are still (often highly) anxious. Dr Sandra
Fenton (La Trobe University) has done research on working with people who
regularly exhibit high conflict behaviour and she describes the process of being
stuck in the following way: the stuck person has a MAD (Mistaken Assessment of
Danger [Threat]) response followed by a BAD (Behaviour that is Aggressively
Defensive) response to their perception. Dr Fenton says that if you stay stuck in
your "MAD-BAD" response then that can become a generalised pattern of
behaviour and it becomes easy in that mind-set to perceive everything and
everyone as a threat.
How does this relate to the brains and behaviour of people experiencing
conflict? When the fight or flight emotional response is repeatedly triggered by a
person or situation, this may strengthen the connections in the brain so that fear and
anxiety become the default conscious perception each time that person or situation
is encountered. These feelings, and the underpinning physiological response, have
a powerful influence on behaviour, which becomes aggressive defensive (BAD). It
can be very difficult for people to modify this behaviour, because they're working
against their brain's default responses. They simply get stuck in a state of anxiety
that has a persistent effect on thoughts on behaviour. What are the signs that
someone has had or is having a MAD or BAD response? We might observe some
or all of the following: (Wilmot and Hocker, p.250)
raised blood pressure
sweating
fast breathing
flushed face
muscle tightness
loud or high voice
We might also hear one person engaging in these types of behaviours, described
as "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Wilmot and Hocker again, p.49)
criticisingTHE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 301
stonewalling
defensiveness
contempt
In mediation we might observe each person engaging in these behaviours
against the other. Communication of course, suffers – participants to the conflict
will increasingly respond more to the emotional content they perceive (threatening,
talking down to us, belittling our contributions etc.) and less to the information
content. So we have a downward spiral - a specific problem or issue arises and
damages trust, which is followed by:
Personal antagonism Understanding decreases
Allegations being exchanged Spiralling Mistrust
The "Other" is seen as the Insult followed by insult
problem
Labelling and stereotyping Antagonism
Push and push back (tit for Becoming more and more
tat) entrenched
Mutual Defensiveness Polarisation
Other issues raised to justify Seeking allies
stance
More problems arise No backing down
Belief that nothing can ever be the
same again
So how do we, as conflict resolvers "manage" these behaviours? What works
when someone is in a state of anxiety, perceives that there is a looming threat and
is engaging in fight or flight defensive behaviours? How do we encourage either
ourselves or others to try something different?
Simply letting it out is no solution – expressing anger has been shown to make
people angrier.
(Tavris, C Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion (Simon and Schuster, New
York, 1989)
My suggestion is that the first step for conflict resolvers is to be comfortable
with the participants' high emotion and to assist their participants to become less
anxious. How do we achieve that?302 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
Giving people suggestions about strategies to manage their thinking, so that
their conscious mind can quell the unconscious emotional response, equips them to
behave in a way that breaks the cycle of threat, anxiety and defence that occurs
between people in conflict. Consciously practising alternative and more appropriate
thoughts and behaviours can help the brain change again. It is our everyday habits
that determine who we become, and it's never too late to change, to try new
approaches to old problems.
Jane Schaverian, another New Zealand conflict resolution specialist and trainer
suggests the following: "Whenever you have a choice to be either clever or kind, be
kind" she says. "There are lots of clever people and there is likely to be someone
who is cleverer than you but kindness is in short supply".
In narrative philosophy we consider that to be healthy, our life story is mostly
drama and that we are the heroes in our own life stories. Good drama is about
overcoming obstacles and challenges. We can use these analogies in conflict
coaching and mediation; our clients have conflict stories which can seem
insurmountable and our task as a coach or mediator is to assist the client to create a
new story. The story, remember, is the way we make meaning of the things that
happen and the choices we make. The fact that we may have made choices in the
past (fight or flight choices) does not mean that we cannot make a different choice
in the future. Robert Benjamin, a mediator and academic in Portland, Oregon says
that "...we have no neurological imperative to resolve our conflicts - our
neurological imperatives are to fight or flight....we are pre-programmed to this ... to
engage in resolution we must overcome this programming and make conscious
decisions....we must engage with the process of conflict cognitively as well as
emotionally..." (AMINZ Conference, 2012, Wellington, NZ)
Sometimes people disclose (either accidentally or purposefully) that they
behave as they do because that is all they know. They are not aware of other
behaviour choices because the other choices may be so foreign to them or so
unpractised or so attached to a negative judgement. I asked a young man once why
he hit people so often and his reply was that they needed to respect him and if he
did not hit them they would disrespect him. (I'm paraphrasing here; his own
language was much more colourful but less printable).
So, you are approached by another person who presents in a state of high
anxiety. How best can we, as conflict resolvers, deal with the problem? By being
welcoming, by reassuring them, by offering tea or coffee or water or tissues, by
showing empathy, being non-judgemental, being attentive and not being distracted
(turning off phones, shutting the door, not continuing to work on yourTHE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 303
computer....), by practising high quality listening and reflecting, by going at their
pace... .
For some clients this is enough of an intervention; they overcome their anxiety
and once they feel calm, they can access their own resources and deal with
whatever conflict they were engaged in.
Sometimes lowering anxiety can take quite a long time, whether it is our own
anxiety or that of others. People can be stuck in their anxious response and
therefore stuck in their fight or flight response.
There is a great deal of research to support what some might regard as ordinary
human common sense and kindness. Dr Fenton's research led her to conclude that
reflective listening works best; Bill Eddy (High Conflict Personality Institute)
reaches a similar conclusion. He says that using your EAR (empathy, attention, and
respect) followed by BIFFFing the person (providing brief information in a firm,
friendly and fair manner) works best.
Please note that you have to lend your EAR before you BIFFF anyone, because
of course when you are feeling high levels of anxiety there is insufficient capacity
in your brain to hear and process and consider new information, however useful
and correct that new information might be.
Dr Crawshaw's research led her to conclude that coaching works best to deal
with aggressive and abrasive behaviour patterns, even with high flying executives.
One of our roles as conflict resolvers is to allow, encourage and coach our
parties to engage their cognitive abilities. It is to encourage the skills and practice
of self-reflection and to accept that while our personality traits may predispose us
to either fighting or flight, that we still have choice and by exercising our right to
choose, we can consider which behaviour we might try today and what we are
hoping to achieve and how we want to regard ourselves after the surge of adrenalin
has passed. It is also to remember that we can make other choices if the first thing
we try doesn't work as well as we'd hoped.
To engage successfully in mediation both parties must be able to control their
behaviour to at least some degree otherwise we are unable to meet our first
requirement of providing safety. This does not suggest that people in mediation are
on their best behaviour; they are not! However they do need to demonstrate that
they can be respectful and follow behavioural and procedural guidelines if they
choose the option of mediation. The role of the mediator is to provide a safe
process for all parties and to coach them to make best use of the mediation
intervention. Getting participants to trust you as the mediator and to trust the304 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
process of mediation is often more important than any other task you may have as
the person who facilitates the resolution of conflict.
As mediators we need to demonstrate that we can be comfortable with other
people's (high) emotion. Few of us have conflict about things that we don't care
about and, remembering Freud's theory, we can feel anxiety about loss without
literally fearing death or abandonment.
Often people come to mediation because they fear loss of reputation, loss of
status, loss of belonging, loss of place. That fear of loss dominating the person's
thinking-feeling processes will need you, the conflict resolver, to provide
assistance and management of the process. It won't require you to represent or
agree with or like the people who engage with you.
As conflict resolvers we can first develop our own self-awareness, practise our
own reflective learning and use the support resources available to us so that when
we engage with our clients, we can encourage and ask the good questions that we
have some experience of asking ourselves because that is an intervention that is
likely to help when it all seems overwhelming for the parties. As Jane Schaverian
says, we should practise kindness more often because it works.
VI NEUROLOGY, EMOTIONS AND DECISION MAKING
If we consider that one purpose of conflict coaching or mediation is to support a
party or parties to make better/more mutually acceptable decisions, then one stage
of any conflict resolution process is to "try out the possible outcomes or offers or
decisions that are possible".
And would some Power the small gift give us,
To see ourselves as others see us,
It would from many a blunder free us.
(Robert Burns 1786)THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 305
Agenda
Agenda
The world of Needs
Needs
People, Things, Wants
Wants
Events, Fears
Fears
Conflicts Expectations
Expectations
Mind set
Mind set
Prejudices
Prejudices
Attitudes
Attitudes
Values
Values
Beliefs
Beliefs
Language
Language
Experience
Experience
Self-image
Self-image
World View
World View
The problem is that content of a person's communication is shaped by aspects of
their persona we will never know and it matters little what they meant by their
communication, it is our perception, also shaped by elements of our persona, which
creates a response that can be unexpected or conflictual.
For team leaders and mediators, the perception of Person 1 is their reality,
whether it is also yours or that of Person 2 doesn't matter – Person 1 is sure that
what was done or said is "real" and "true" and that is what you have to work with.
This is why two people in conflict can have very different views of what the
conflict is about:
There are multiple unique views of conflict, yet each looks 'real' to the one seeing it.
(Wilmot and Hocker, 2001, p 27)
VII ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Even normal interaction may involve faulty communication, but conflict seems
to worsen the problem. When two people are in conflict, they often attribute
negative motivations to "the other."
Consequently, a statement that might have seemed innocuous when two parties
were friends might seem hostile or threatening when the same parties are in
conflict.
Research shows that we make different attributions about ourselves than about
others. This is known as 'fundamental attribution error'.306 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
This means that we tend to attribute other To compound this, we tend
people's behaviour attribute our own behaviour
more to disposition less to disposition and
less to circumstances more to circumstances
We are most prone to fundamental attribution error when we are under stress or in
conflict. All of this seems to apply just as forcefully to groups: we tend to attribute
the behaviour of 'out-group' members to their internal disposition rather than
circumstances.
(Attribution Theory Bernard Weiner, 1992)
VIII IMPLICATIONS FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Disentangling skewed attri-
butions can be constructive Behaviour
because research has shown that You didn't turn up for my
attribution is closely linked to meeting.
emotional response. Perception
You have no respect for me.
If I think you harmed me
Attribution
deliberately, or because you
Your actions undermine me.
couldn't care less, I am
likely to feel angry. Once emotionally aroused I am more likely to retaliate,
perpetuating a cycle of conflict and hostility.
Behaviour
However, if I find out that You didn't turn up for my
your actions were affected by meeting
circumstances beyond your Understanding
control, my response is likely You rushed your partner to
to change from anger to hospital.
sympathy.
IX RELATED IDEAS
• Accuser bias – the tendency for an observer who is harmed by someone
else's behaviour to attribute it to causes under the other person's control
• Bias of the accused –tendency to attribute my bad behaviour to
circumstances beyond my control.
• Actor/observer bias - tendency to see our own behaviour as the product of
the situation BUT other people's behaviour as the product of their internal
stateTHE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 307
• Status quo bias- if change is perceived to be "too hard" or the other person
is perceived to be "too untrustworthy" then the status quo, however
uncomfortable that may be, will tend to seem more attractive in
comparison to any change. Certain conditions, especially in long mediation
sessions can add to that. People feel forced into making or not making
decisions when they are hungry (including dehydrated), angry, lonely or
tired.
These biases combine and then work together to render conflict not only
insoluble but incomprehensible to those involved. The external circumstances
driving my actions are painted out of your picture, while they become the headlines
in my own story ('I had to respond because of what you did').
X USEFUL STRATEGIES IN MEDIATION
• Educate people about attribution bias so they become less prone to it
• Help people to take the other person's perspective – to gain an appreciation
for the factors beyond their control. Even the simple strategy of "checking
my understanding" can limit the negative potential of attribution error. Eg
'Do you mind saying what you meant by that?' or 'I notice you use the word
'disrespect': can you say what respect means to you?'
• Mediators can use the technique of "circular questions" if they consider
that educating causes them to compromise their impartiality.
• Help people reflect on their own attributions and emotions – 'mediators
may need to do more than bring the emotion to the surface; they need to
help parties appraise and reappraise the emotion' (Jameson et al, 2010, p
44). We can help people to re-tell their initial story so as to arrive at a
different emotion and subsequent actions and significantly, open up the
possibility of a different ending to the conflict story. Jameson et al suggest
that we can adapt standard mediator practices such as 'paraphrasing and
perspective taking' to include discussion of emotion.
XI INTEGRATING OUR RESPONSES TO CONFLICT INTO
DECISION MAKING
When confronted, our first decision is between engaging and withdrawing.
Our fight or flight response is useful, ingrained and automatic. Its purpose is our
survival. However, it makes mistakes, sometimes about "the amount of danger"
that we face. (MAD). We fight or flee when we feel threatened, and, as Freud
discovered, this occurs just as much at a psychological level especially when others
respond to us in an unexpected manner, as it does when we are confronted by
actual physical danger.308 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
We expect certain situations to be threatening – racing car driving or abseiling
down a cliff – so we prepare for it. But when someone we know - a friend or
partner or colleague – behaves in an unexpectedly negative way, we have no
warning, so stress hormones pour into our body diverting blood into our arms and
legs.
If we consider that a constructive way to respond to conflict is with the full
capacity of our minds being rational and thoughtful and our emotions being fully
managed, we might understand why conflict is described sometimes as "inevitable"
– when we are challenged, we mostly respond at the exact time blood is leaving our
brain.
So we might conclude that an initial decision is as likely to be irrational as
rational. In narrative terms, these two terms are a part of the conflict dichotomy
because one word, "rational" is often understood as "a better response" than the
other word, "irrational". I would encourage you to consider that rational and
irrational are simply subjective judgements, usually made by one person about
another with whom they are in disagreement. The judgement "rational" implies a
degree of agreement and shared priorities whilst the judgement "irrational" implies
a degree of disagreement and different priorities. The act of judging in itself is
likely to escalate the conflict and make a shared decision harder to achieve.
The things we have conflict about can be considered as a combination of
practicalities, principles and power. Think, for example of how decisions are made
whenever two or more people share a living space, about doing domestic chores. If
we consider a cliché situation: if one person works outside the home and earns a
salary and another works unpaid and inside the home to raise children then
discussions about how to share the domestic work would include practicalities:
time and other resources that are available; principles: fairness and equity of
contributions and power: how the different contributions are valued. Once the
conversation becomes defined by "rational versus irrational" then it escalates and
becomes much less manageable or resolvable.
The key, then, is to consider decision making as an exercise which includes all
three factors to everyone's satisfaction, and that value judgements are identified as
such and discussed in that context.
XII FAMILY LIFE EXAMPLE
Person One: "In my value system, my expectation is that the person whose
primary role is to provide a home environment for the children we have, should
also do the housework."THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING OUR DEFENCE SYSTEM 309
Person Two: "I understand that and in my value system, my expectation is that
each of us works the same number of hours at our primary role: you earning an
income to support our family priorities and me engaging with the children and the
domestic work of cooking, cleaning, shopping and ground maintenance is shared
between us."
This is a different conversation than:
Person One: "You are so lucky to be able to stay home and play with the kids all
day. You spend most of the time with your friends. It's irrational and impractical to
expect me to come home from working all day and help around the house."
Person Two: "You don't understand how stressful it is to be with young children
all day; I never even get to finish my sentences and then you come home and
expect a tidy house and clean children and a gourmet dinner. It's not fair."
Person One: "You're being emotional!"
Decision making is at its best (and usually most sustainable) when our thoughts
and emotions and values are aligned. Each person's values are respected. Fairness
and trust in each other are considered as much as any practicalities are addressed.
Each person's need for "the right amount of time for me" is included.
When parties come to us as dispute resolvers, and are at the decision making
stage, we also need to take these concepts into account. How might we do this?
Other than our professional requirement to "stay in the mediator role" (ie not be
tempted to bang heads or make the decisions ourselves or give up and create an
agreement that is meaningless but ticks the boxes) we have some possible
strategies available to us as coaches or mediators including:
• Being able to acknowledge when there is a problem and suggest a 15
minute "cooling off" period, after which you will happily discuss the issues
the other may have. This allows for the fight or flight reaction (the
amygdala) to exert less control over the thinking brain (the pre-frontal
cortex) and for the participants to reassert their ability to "think and feel in
parallel."
• Asking questions about the tensions between practicalities, principles and
power and how these tensions might be more balanced.
• Assisting the parties to understand more about their preferred method of
responding to conflict may help them to re-direct their behaviour and self-
regulate.
• Talk about the power of language and whether the parties' use of language
is inviting resolution or inviting further conflict escalation.310 INTERNATIONAL TRADE/ADR IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
• Being compassionate; conflict is something we all struggle with and parties
come to a professional and ask for help because they are stuck. In the dark.
Blind. Our role is to cast light, open up possibilities, stay with the conflict
story at its most difficult time.
Given that we have chosen this profession, our skills and self-care processes are
open to scrutiny. Hopefully sharing our stories of successful conflict resolution will
help us to maintain our own dignity and self-awareness and sense of humour.You can also read
